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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/28920531">Pharos</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/salvage/pseuds/salvage'>salvage</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>The Terror (TV 2018)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Lighthouses, M/M, canon era AU</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2021-01-22</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-01-29</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-13 12:40:45</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Explicit</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>2</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>13,798</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/28920531</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/salvage/pseuds/salvage</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <em>When he conversed with others about his occupation, they usually expressed some sentiment along the lines of, “Goodness, you poor man; it must be so lonely!” But in truth John did not think a light keeper’s life particularly lonely; at least, it was not so for a man like himself. There was something clear and bracing about feeling lonely while being actually, physically alone on this desolate little island; it was a straightforward kind of loneliness, not the obscure and complicated loneliness he felt when he was amidst a crowd of people.</em>
</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>John Bridgens/Henry "Harry" Peglar</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>36</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>74</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Collections:</b></td><td>Bridglar Week 2021</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. Chapter One</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>The canon-era Bridgens/Peglar lighthouse keepers fic absolutely no one asked for.  </p><p>This story has two chapters and will update weekly. The rating will change as the content of the chapters changes. Thanks to Suzelle and TMAH.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>There was a simplicity to the life of a lighthouse keeper that suited John Bridgens very well. After so many years spent following the regimented structure of shipboard life he was used to parceling his time into neat half-hour segments, following the same routine day upon day upon day. He took readings from the recently installed sympiesometer, recording the temperature and the level of the colored oil in the efficiently compact little barometer and calculating the air pressure in his careless, looping script on the slate between the door and the writing desk, and then, later, copying these numbers as neat little figures with his own very fine-quality pen on the rather moderate-quality paper of the lighthouse’s log. Beside each neat collection of numbers, time and temperature and pressure and the height of the tide, he would also describe the sea and the sky: whether the vast, impenetrable waters of the Atlantic Ocean were flat and clear, stretching from the rocks below the lighthouse all the way to the distant curve of the horizon like a piece of blue-gray fabric held taut between two hands, barely a ripple marring its flat surface, or whether they were tempestuous and wild, with waves bursting from the dark, unsettled surface of the water like angrily rearing white-maned horses; whether the clouds were faint wisps of smudged chalk disintegrating and re-forming as they moved swiftly across the wide expanse of the pale sky or whether they were thick, plump tufts of pure-white cotton that shuffled like lazy sheep from one line of the horizon to the other, or whether they formed a dun-colored ceiling hanging low and heavy with the threat of rain. </p><p>John liked, too, the tasks involved in the maintenance of the light: he liked the ritual of climbing up and up the spiral stairs of the lighthouse just after the sun crested the nearest landmass, Franklin Isle, when the daylight was still pale and watery, streaming weakly through the haze of the early-morning humidity that settled over the barren rocks and low scrubby grass that grew on that island, and on what he’d come to think of as his own, Erebus. He liked looking out over the shimmering, sunlit ocean and imagining what kind of day it would be, how the sky and the sea would roil and roll. He liked extinguishing the oil lantern that powered the light, carefully trimming the wick and taking up the weights that set the huge glittering mechanism of the Fresnel lens revolving on its slow course. He found a meditative comfort in the task of cleaning the lens and the lantern with their soft buff-colored linen cloths, polishing each concentric circle of every facet of the lens until it gleamed so brightly in the early-morning sunlight he could barely stand to look upon it, and then fitting the huge linen lens bag over it, drawing the curtains around the lantern room windows to enclose the entirety of the thing in darkness like some glimmering beast put to sleep every morning and awoken every evening. He sometimes gave it a final pat before descending the stairs, fondly, feeling some kinship with this glittering, lonely thing polished and packed away for so much of the time ordinary people went about their business. </p><p>And then, each evening, when the sun considered approaching the line of the horizon, John went up the stairs again. He inspected the light he had cleaned that morning, each glittering prism that would take the quiet voice of this little oil lantern and amplify it so profoundly across the perilous dark stretch of the sea that it would sing sailors twenty nautical miles away to their safe homes, and he inspected the lantern with its braided wick and the bottles of expensive, viscous whale oil whose use he carefully recorded in the log and ensured the vent at the very apex of the lantern room was unobstructed so that the heavy fish-sharp scent of the whale oil could exit the room and the fresh clean sea air could enter, bolstering the bright flame. The act of lighting the stout little lantern was, John imagined, not dissimilar to that of religious worship, the raptures of which he had never himself actually experienced during a church service but which he had read about in many and various books, poems, and treatises. To see the thick braided wick take the flame sparked from the union of flint and fire striker, first hesitantly and then in full force, drawing oil up its length to feed the merrily burning fire, which, once glowing, John would place at the nexus of the great gleaming contraption of the light; to distill one’s belief in the mechanisms of the world down to a single pure and glowing droplet and then to magnify that across vast distances, touching and gently guiding untold others; was this not faith?</p><p>When he conversed with others about his occupation, they usually expressed some sentiment along the lines of, “Goodness, you poor man; it must be so lonely!” But in truth John did not think a light keeper’s life particularly lonely; at least, it was not so for a man like himself. There was something clear and bracing about feeling lonely while being actually, physically alone on this desolate little island; it was a straightforward kind of loneliness, not the obscure and complicated loneliness he felt when he was amidst a crowd of people. </p><p>And yet when he plucked from the crate with his weekly delivery of flour and soap and whale oil a very official-looking cream-colored envelope enclosing a missive from the Northern Lighthouse Board informing him that he was recently appointed an assistant keeper who would arrive on Erebus the following Saturday, John’s initial reaction was a skeptical and tempered kind of joy. Perhaps it was merely relief at the thought of occasionally trading watches with someone else, though he was unsure what he would even do with a full night’s sleep, having long since trained his body out of the habit; likely he would simply have more time for reading, which was itself not an unwelcome outcome. With his sailor’s innate superstition he avoided full consideration of the best possible outcome: a companion, another set of hands to tend the hearth and polish the gleaming glass surfaces of the light, perhaps even someone with whom to discuss the books John treasured so well. And if he and the assistant keeper did not get on, well, there were always many chores to complete, care of the house and the light and the island’s little dock, and assistant keeper posts were often temporary. It would neither be the first time John was forced into the company of someone he disliked and who disliked him in turn nor the closest quarters he would have been forced into with such a person. </p><p>John only realized he was anxious about the arrival of the as-yet-unnamed assistant keeper when he found himself reorganizing the entirety of the library the evening before the assistant was set to arrive. The library was the most sacred space on the island, housing that which was most precious to John, and he felt that another person looking upon it might immediately know his very soul; and so, perhaps paradoxically, he sought to make it easier to parse: as though in rearranging the beloved and well-worn leather-bound volumes of Cicero and Euripides and Lucian, Donne and Keats and Shakespeare, he could rearrange himself, make himself less of a mystery to this stranger who would soon share his home; as though he could force some sympathy between them by presenting himself properly. </p><p>The next morning dawned dark and unsettled, the low-hanging ceiling of clouds threatening rain without following through so that John carried out each of his daily tasks with an eye to the sky, waiting for a deluge that was yet to come. The strange, upward-moving wind caught the dark ends of his hair and tossed them about his face as he crossed from the keeper’s house to the light itself; it whined and howled like some strange beast about the tower as he climbed the wrought-iron stairs and when he reached the lantern room he heard it whistling through the little opening of the ventilator in the ceiling. </p><p>It was late in the gray afternoon, the clouds still looming ominously overhead without letting loose their rain, before John saw the little green-and-white-painted skiff that was used to shuttle supplies and, less frequently, personnel across the small stretch of water between Franklin Isle and Erebus. From his place at the top of the jagged cliffs that plunged steeply downward into the frothy waves that troubled the circumference of the island he watched the way it skimmed lightly and easily over the turbulent surface of the water, oars fluttering to either side of it like the wings of an insect. He could only just see two figures seated in the shallow boat. He knew he should begin descending the stairs that led down the cliffside to the little dock that extended out into the sea like a tongue awaiting communion but he found himself frozen in place, possessed, again, by the anxiety that had plagued him the previous night: that he should surrender his treasured and hard-won solitude to some stranger, some undeserving young appointee of the Northern Lighthouse Board; that he should be forced to give over the care of his light and his home to someone else—but these were uncharitable thoughts, and John began picking his way down the stairs. </p><p>Two men were unloading a few crates of supplies and the distinctive shape of a sea-chest from the skiff when John reached the dock. One was the familiar figure of Charles Osmer, who had delivered the letter with last week’s crate of supplies as he had delivered every preceding week’s crate, his battered old sailcloth coat flapping about him in the strong wind. John examined the other man closely: he was rather short, though not particularly slight, and he handled himself and the supplies he and Osmer were unloading with the confidence of an experienced seaman. He couldn’t have been older than 25, John thought, and any possible solemnity implied by his neatly kept beard was mitigated by the gleam in his eyes and the wide, easy smile that immediately graced his countenance when he spotted John.</p><p>“Ah! You must be Mr. Bridgens,” the young man said. He carefully set down the crate he carried before striding up to John and offering his hand to shake: he wore gray half-fingered gloves from which the distal two segments of each thick square finger extended, a sailor’s fingers, callus-rough. He shook John’s hand with enthusiasm. “Henry Peglar.” </p><p>“I am pleased to meet you, Mr. Peglar,” John said, already rather taken with the young man’s excited energy and wide, honest eyes. “Welcome to Erebus.”</p><p>“Glad to be here,” Mr. Peglar said, “and please, call me Henry.” </p><p>“Then you must address me as John,” John said, even despite the obscure dread that had begun to settle about his heart. Somehow, for all his anxiety, John had not accounted for this most disastrous possible outcome: he <em>liked</em> Henry.</p><p>They unloaded the crates and Henry’s sea-chest onto the dock and then Osmer cast off, leaving them to the process of ferrying the supplies up the cliff. “I’ll keep a weather eye out for your light,” he said as he rowed away, broad shoulders under his dun-colored coat working with the familiar, rhythmic motion of the oars, and John and Henry bade him good-bye, and then they were alone, together, on Erebus.</p><p>They carried the crates up the treacherous staircase that snaked up the cliff face: crates of flour and sugar, salted meat and canned vegetables, little oblong metallic canisters of tea leaves that rattled gently against one another with a quiet hollow sound with each step John took. One of the crates contained numerous glass cylinders, packed in with straw, each containing the thick honey-brown whale oil that was used to keep the lantern burning. After ferrying these to the top of the cliff they descended for a final time to retrieve Henry’s sea-chest, sturdy, painted the bright blue-green that was so familiar to John from all his years working aboard ships, with a little bone-white tag nailed to each side that read: H. Peglar. Without any discussion John grabbed the worn-soft loop of rope that made a handle on one side of the chest and Henry took the other and they hoisted it between them, Henry leading John slowly but carefully up the stairs, his gloved hand never leaving the thin rail that traced the jagged path of the stairway up the cliff wall. As Henry ascended and the sea-chest tipped to one side John felt the soft movement of cloth items within it, the obscure thump and shift of its secret contents: shirts, perhaps, a sweater, a second pair of stockings with carefully darned holes where some hidden, callus-rough parts of Henry’s body had worn through the thin fabric. </p><p>Atop the cliff Henry paused to look over the dark unsettled expanse of water that separated Erebus from Franklin Isle, across which they could see the little triangular shape of Osmer’s boat swiftly moving. To see Henry spending a moment appreciate the extraordinary view, the tempestuous sea with its stormy whitecaps and the gleaming dark rocks that elevated both islands’ lush, velvety green grass high above it, made John like Henry all the more: Henry looked from the cliffs to the meadow to the tidy little keeper’s house, and of course to the lighthouse it towering above it all, its lens still veiled, taking it all in with an apprising solemnity that John found himself admiring. Oh, these thoughts were dangerous, and John quickly quenched the spark of interest that threatened to flare up inside him. </p><p>The rain began just as they approached the house, fat drops that slicked John’s hair to his head and wormed their way under his coat collar to chill the back of his neck. “S’pose I should be glad it held off as long as it did,” Henry said wryly when they reached the porch and deposited the crates of supplies there. He glanced sidelong at John, smiling again, raindrops glittering like stars where they were caught in his dark hair and beard. “You shouldn’t have to go out in it. I’ll get the chest,” he said, and before John could respond he took off down the footpath that led from the house to the dock. </p><p>“Right,” John said to his quickly retreating back, and began shuttling the crates into the kitchen. </p><p>The inside of the house seemed particularly warm and inviting after having been out in the late-autumn storm: each lit lamp gave the little sitting room a cozy orange-tinted glow and the soup John left simmering on the hearth had imparted to the air itself a fragrant, fatty richness. John first catalogued the supplies for the light, checking each bottle of whale oil and then scribbling their exact volumes on the slate beside the door to be recorded later in the keeper’s log. He had begun unloading the food items into the pantry when the front door eased open and Henry entered the house for the first time; John went to the door to meet him only to realize too late he was still holding a can of stewed tomatoes, and he placed them hastily on the kitchen table. </p><p>“Oh!” Henry said, glancing around the sitting room and through the entryway to the kitchen with wide eyes, still holding his rain-spattered sea-chest. “It’s lovely!” His short dark hair was plastered to his forehead and the dim lamplight highlighted the moisture on his nose and cheeks so that his skin seemed limned with gold. </p><p>“Thank you,” John finally managed to say. Impossible to tell whether Henry’s wonderment was owing to surprise regarding the condition of the house itself or the peculiar cleanliness of John’s bachelor’s lifestyle; nonetheless, he sounded genuinely pleased, which John decided to take as a compliment. </p><p>“Your room is through here,” John said, leading Henry down the dark little corridor off of which each bedroom sprouted like branches of a stout little tree. Henry followed, his shoes squeaking slightly on the floor, and when John showed him his simple little bedroom he glanced all around it and then smiled another of his wide, open smiles. </p><p>“A bit bigger than I’m used to,” he explained, carefully setting his chest in one corner of the room. John tried to see it through his eyes: though it had been many years, he, too, had once been a sailor awed by the unimaginable few feet of open space between a tidily outfitted little cot and an old but polished wooden wardrobe. Along with the basin in the corner which John had set up with a porcelain pitcher of clean water and a flannel the room looked spare, yet comfortable and inviting.</p><p>“We can set up a hammock,” John said, “if you’d like.” </p><p>That startled a bright, lovely laugh out of Henry. </p><p>“I will need to tend to the light, in this weather,” John said, serious once again. “You may get settled.”</p><p>“If it’s all right, I’d like to come along,” Harry said immediately. </p><p>The conditions were far from ideal for a novice keeper to learn about tending to the light. “You’re sure?” </p><p>“Can’t get much worse than this, can it?” </p><p>“You’d be surprised. All right.” John led the way back into the sitting room, to the little desk on which sat the keeper’s log. “First: the log.” </p><p>Henry’s face immediately fell. “Ah,” he said. </p><p>“You needn’t be Sir Walter Scott about it,” John assured him. </p><p>“Right,” Henry said uncertainly. His expression was closed as tightly as the light during the day: not even a glimmer of his previous cheerfulness could be seen. </p><p>“Truly, it is as simple as tallying the amount of oil used each night and a few words about the weather conditions.” </p><p>Henry nodded silently; John wanted to continue to reassure him but with the way the sky had already darkened, his priority was the light. He handed Henry one of the tar-coated sailcloth raincoats and a sou’wester that hung on a hook beside the door and donned his own, lit a sturdy hurricane lantern, and grabbed a bottle of whale oil. Before opening the door he glanced at Henry, who was struggling with the clasps of his coat: no clue emerged as to what bothered him. They went out into the storm. </p><p>The raindrops were still huge and seemed to fall from the sky with a vicious velocity, spattering loudly against the crown and brim of John’s hat as he hurried to the lighthouse, Henry close behind him. The air inside the lighthouse was cold and damp and the noise of the rain thundering against the curved metal walls was near deafening. The black wrought-iron stairs spiraled up into the darkness, with only faint illumination filtering down from the closed lantern room above them. He should have given Henry his own hurricane lantern, he scolded himself: Henry would be less familiar with stairs than John was, and was in greater danger of stumbling. </p><p>“Take this,” John said, handing the lantern to Henry, who took it with the same taciturn recalcitrance that had haunted him since he saw the log. </p><p>“Oh,” Henry said, belatedly, as John started up the stairs without the lantern, “you should have this.” </p><p>“I could tread this path blindfolded,” John responded, raising his voice slightly to be heard above the din. “Don’t worry about me.” </p><p>Their footsteps on each metal stair sounded only faintly amidst the relentless battering of the rain and the howl of the wind and the familiar, ever-present roar of the sea. The lantern room, even during a storm, was familiar to John, but he again tried to imagine what he saw through Henry’s eyes: the big pale curtains that shielded the windows coming down to reveal the stunning panorama of the wild sky and turbulent sea, the distant shape of Franklin Isle and, closer, the little jagged bursts of rock that jutted up from the sea and against which the frenzied and whitecapped waves frothed and broke. And then the light, when John tugged its lens bag off with a little more flourish than he was used to doing: the huge, shimmering second-order Fresnel lens, the jutting edges of its upper facets and the concentric circles of its main lenses through which light passed strangely, highlighted by the ever-moving multicolored glimmers that tripped over its surface, and the brightly polished metal frame that encased the thing entire. </p><p>“It’s beautiful,” Henry breathed, so quietly John would not have heard him were Henry not holding the lantern just beside him. </p><p>“She is a pretty thing, isn’t she,” John said. He felt strangely satisfied about this as he explained the process of lighting the lamp and then setting in motion the huge gears that set the lens to revolving. He was pleased that Henry seemed to appreciate the Erebus light for what she was: a modern wonder of optics and engineering, and a beacon that had already saved countless ships in the few years she had stood, of course, but also a unique and dignified object in her own right, glimmering and fantastic, with light moving over the strange sleek curves of her powerful reflective surfaces. </p><p>“We’ll check her every half hour or so, to be sure she’s still alight,” John said once he had finished and the lens was slowly revolving on its axis, shining its powerful beam into the stormy night. </p><p>“Right.” Henry still sounded a little dazed. </p><p>“Don’t blind yourself, now,” John chided gently, and then Henry finally turned away from the light and started down the stairs. </p><p>They stopped once again after John closed and secured the door to the lighthouse, still battered and buffeted by the wind and rain but both pausing to look up the towering white-painted structure toward the gleaming beacon that emitted from the spire. John wondered whether Henry saw what John did when he looked at it.</p><p>Henry was charmingly conscientious before reentering the house: he shed his hat and coat on the porch and attempted to shake the excess water off both before bringing them inside, and he carefully tapped water from his boots before crossing into the kitchen to warm his hands near the hearth. John halted by the door to quickly scribble on the slate the amount of oil used in the lamp. He looked contemplatively at the slate, the stub of chalk he held, the cream-pale paper of the open log with its neatly segmented boxes half-filled with John’s cramped handwriting.</p><p>First, they would eat. </p><p>It was strange to lay a second place at the little table at which John was so used to eating alone, but it was a pleasant and comfortable sort of strangeness, like that of a holiday: one that John could see himself becoming accustomed to. They sat across from one another, eating the rich and warming soup John had made earlier in the day using the carcass of a roasted chicken and the tiny yellow potatoes he had harvested from the garden and sprigs of fresh rosemary that he plucked from the healthy little plant he kept by the window in the kitchen, remembering how the fragrant oils of the plant had scented his hands for a long while after he ran his fingers over the plant’s tiny prickly leaves. They tore into a soft loaf of bread, scattering crumbs all over the tabletop, and when John asked Henry about the last ship he crewed Henry began, hesitantly at first but with growing confidence, to speak. </p><p>There was an unpolished brilliance to his words; although Henry was clearly unschooled he described with great insight his experience on HMS <em>Leven</em>, a sixth-rate post-ship that had, between 1821 and 1826, mapped a good portion of the eastern coast of Africa and apprehended a few slave ships plying their illegal trade. Henry liked the exploratory nature of the voyage; he spoke excitedly of Captain William Fitzwilliam Owen’s great talents at astronomy, navigation, and hydrography, as well as of the unparalleled maps of the coastline that came out of the survey. “We are so fortunate to live during such a time of innovation and exploration, such enlightened thinking,” Henry said; but then, as before when he had seen the keeper’s log, his expression darkened. </p><p>John was utterly entranced by the honest expressiveness of Henry’s face, the way his hazel eyes widened to express amazement and the way his mouth, beneath the soft obfuscation of his neat beard, tipped as easily into a grin as it did a contemplative frown. “And yet?” He prompted. </p><p>Henry’s lovely hazel eyes darted toward the fire still smoldering in the hearth. “’Tis more of a… personal complaint,” he prevaricated. </p><p>“If I, my lord, for my opinion bleed, / opinion shall be surgeon to my hurt / And keep me on the side where still I am,” John quoted. “Not one of his best plays, certainly, but…” </p><p>Henry glanced at John, confusion apparent in his gaze. </p><p>“Shakespeare,” John explained. </p><p>“Ah,” Henry said. “Well. I am not a particularly devout man.” </p><p>John nodded for him to continue. </p><p>“For all his skill at cartography and navigation, Captain Owen was… very zealous.” </p><p>“There is a certain brand of natural explorer whose aim is bent more on dominion than knowledge,” John said carefully.</p><p>Henry relaxed fractionally. “I tried to sign up for watch duty during Sunday services,” he said. </p><p>John laughed. “Did it work?” </p><p>Henry, too, let out a nervous little laugh. “Most of the time.” </p><p>“You will get none of that here,” John assured him. He understood Henry’s reticence about this topic, at least. </p><p>“That’s—good. That’s good,” Henry said with audible relief. </p><p>Having soothed Henry’s nervousness about the topic of religion, John was reluctant to broach that of the log and whatever about it had caused Henry such concern earlier, but it was, ultimately, part of the job, and Henry was here to learn. With as much care as he could muster, John said, “I don’t wish to make you uncomfortable, but I must ask about the log.” </p><p>Henry seemed to curl in on himself, hunching his shoulders and tipping his chin down so that he gazed sullenly at the scraped-clean bowl that stood before him. He fiddled with his spoon, rolling the handle between his thumb and forefinger so that the silvery cup of it revolved, catching the firelight like the Fresnel lens. “Right.” </p><p>“If you’re—” John began, but before he could continue Henry cut him off. </p><p>“It’s just, I never learned how to read,” he said, all in a rush. </p><p>Whatever John had expected, that was not it. He stared at Henry, this bright and enthusiastic young man who had such interest in cartography and exploration. “Never learned?” </p><p>“I’m too thick to be taught,” Henry said quietly. The words had the worn-smooth feeling of a track often traveled, as though someone had said this to him, verbatim, and he had spent the rest of his life repeating it to himself. </p><p>“Nonsense,” John said, but gently: he would not damage this young man any further. </p><p>“Hasn’t been a problem,” Henry said, shrugging defensively. “Get along just fine without it.” </p><p>“I’m sorry to say, but there is an aspect of literacy required for the occupation of keeper.” </p><p>With a jerky, convulsive movement, Henry nodded. “I can—I can go. They’ll find you another assistant.” He spun the spoon faster and faster between his fingers. </p><p>“No!” John found himself saying with more force than he had anticipated. “No.” </p><p>Henry looked at John for the first time since John asked about the log. The spoon stopped moving. His eyebrows were drawn together over clear hazel eyes fringed with long, thick lashes. He said nothing. </p><p>“If you’re willing to learn,” John said, “I will teach you.” </p><p>“Why?” </p><p>If John had not been resolved earlier, the raw desolation embodied in the single word alone would have convinced him to undertake this task. But he would not say that to the young man, for he would not have him think John patronizing when such an intent was the furthest thing from John’s mind. He would do nothing out of pity. He sat in silence for a moment, gathering his thoughts. “You deserve to learn,” he finally said, looking at Henry. “You’re clearly intelligent and thoughtful. You have an interest in the natural world and an innate curiosity with which few are blessed. And,” he continued, “I like you. I can’t imagine I would have the luck to like two assistant keepers in a row.” </p><p>Henry laughed weakly and blinked at the table, dark eyelashes fluttering. There was color in his cheeks above the neatly trimmed line of his whiskers. “Right.” </p><p>“I promise you,” John said fervently, suddenly wanting very much for Henry to believe him, “you are <em>not</em> thick.”</p><p>“Right,” Henry repeated, voice nearly breaking, as he ran a hand over his beard. </p><p>“But that is a task for tomorrow,” John said, diverting the conversation, “and it is time, now, to check on the light.” </p><p>“Oh.” Henry’s voice was still raw but he seemed to shake himself out of his melancholy, wrapping the leftover crust of bread in a square of linen and gathering the dishes that were strewn about the table. He moved with the efficiency borne of a long time spent shipboard and, quickly learning the proper places of items in the kitchen, he and John easily moved around one another in the narrow space. </p><p>“On a night like tonight, we should check the light every half hour,” John explained. </p><p>“At each bell.” </p><p>“Yes,” John said with a smile. “I expect that won’t be a problem for you.” </p><p>“You’re here by yourself,” Henry said, as though realizing this for the first time, pausing with the utensils still bundled together in his hands to look over at John fussing about in the pantry. “D’you really check it all night?” </p><p>“When the weather turns, yes,” John replied. </p><p>“No wonder you’re willing to teach me to read,” Henry said dryly. </p><p>This startled a laugh out of John: how fortunate it was that his path had crossed with Henry’s in the way it did. “We will both benefit from the arrangement, yes,” John said, the tremor of a laugh tripping through the words. </p><p>When the kitchen was tidy they went back over to the door, though John donned only his coat and left the still-damp sou’wester on its hook; Henry, observing him carefully, followed his lead. “For all the innovation of the entire lighthouse experiment on Erebus,” John said, deftly fastening his buttons in anticipation of the wild wind, “this house was unfortunately not designed with a view to the light. You must step onto the porch to see it properly.” </p><p>“Seems like a bit of an oversight.” </p><p>“Write the Board,” John said offhandedly, then caught himself with no little remorse. </p><p>“That shall be the first thing I do,” Henry replied with a knowing little glance at John: forgiveness, whether or not John deserved it. </p><p>John thought, once more, about how very lucky he was, and then he opened the door to the howling storm.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. Chapter Two</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>The first few days of lessons were difficult. During his time asea John had certainly helped ship’s boys and ABs to learn to read, but Henry seemed to have a peculiar problem with certain specific letters. </p>
<p>“It’s as though they won’t hold still,” he said, helplessly, looking up at John from a page on which John had painstakingly traced an alphabet for Henry to copy in his hesitant, shaky hand. He had, once again, written “b” instead of “d.” “Maybe it’s my eyes.” He placed the pencil on the table and scrubbed his hands over his face as though this might solve the problem. “Christ,” he mumbled. </p>
<p>“You’ll get it,” John said. </p>
<p>“Maybe I am fucking thick,” Henry said viciously; although John knew the ire in Henry’s voice was not directed toward him, he still flinched. “Sorry,” Henry said, and then, apology written across his expressive face, he reached across the table to gently rest his hand over the back of John’s. “It’s not you. You know that.” </p>
<p>“You are making progress,” John said, placing his other hand atop Henry’s so that Henry’s broad, rough hand was caught between both of John’s, feeling the warmth and weight of it as he clasped it tightly for just a moment. “Perhaps it is time for a break.” </p>
<p>“Please,” Henry said, squeezing John’s fingers with his own before John released his hand. </p>
<p>There were always tasks to complete, care of the house and the light and the dock that was their only connection to the rest of the world, tending to the little garden that John himself had planted all along the eastern side of the house, baking bread and airing out the little cots they slept on and cleaning the ever-present haze of soot that the oil lamps left on the walls and ceiling of the house. Henry threw himself into his new life with the cheerfulness and enthusiasm he seemed to bring to all things: he fetched fresh water and trudged up and down the stairs to the light and even, when John became worried about the state of the roof after the storm that occurred on the very first night Harry arrived on Erebus, climbed uncomplainingly onto the roof with a container of tar in one hand and a broad, flat paintbrush clutched between his teeth. They washed their clothing separately for the first two weeks, out of some respect for one another’s privacy, until Henry had, somewhat desperately, offered to trade John any chore he preferred for that of washing Henry’s clothing and linens; thereafter, John did all the washing and Henry had full domain over the upkeep of the house’s sloping, tar-black roof. </p>
<p>Henry discovered, to his own surprise, that he had a particular skill at gardening, so he was primarily in charge of tending to and harvesting the vegetables and John was primarily in charge of cooking them. Henry was good at spotting which leafy bunches of beet greens were attached to sweet, plump little beets, and he enjoyed turning the winter squashes a little each day so that they matured round and even. He liked delving his hands into the cool damp soil to extract a brightly colored carrot; he liked, even, the endlessly repetitive task of searching for the five to seven green beans that ripened each day, still, even into November, pushing the broad heart-shaped leaves of the plant aside to pluck the beans from their fuzzy, prickly stalks. </p>
<p>But between each task, working in the garden or climbing the spiral stairs to the lantern room or repainting the eternally peeling west-facing window casements and shutters, Henry returned to his notebook and pencil, to the alphabets John outlined for him that he faithfully, studiously imitated. As he became more familiar with letters he less frequently confused them for one another but he still just as often wrote them as mirror images of their true selves; therefore, b and d persisted in giving him trouble, as did p and q, even after he had mastered the rest. John had a few times caught him doodling that shape haphazardly in his notebook, dozens of round little bodies with slim tails spiraling around the page as wildly as maple tree seeds.</p>
<p>Autumn continued apace; each cool, short day gave way to a colder and shorter one. The sun crept toward the horizon steadily earlier and thus John and Henry would go out to the light earlier. Henry began to recognize the conditions that meant the light should be lit: a shift in the color of the sky, from clear azure to deep ultramarine; or when gray clouds congregated like dirty, recalcitrant sheep over the bright disc of the sun. And, although learning his letters was difficult work, Henry took rather quickly to numbers, and thus John could leave him to register the temperature and air pressure on the slate beside the door in his shaky, loopy numerals. (It likely helped that he merely had to copy the numbers printed beside the darkly shimmering line of mercury in the sympiesometer, but he calculated the pressure in his head quickly and easily, and although John double-checked his math he was never wrong.)</p>
<p>John was very careful to keep any affection he held for Henry strictly platonic. It would be unfair to both of them if John were to moon over him like some lovestruck maid: to John, because it was entirely unproductive to desire things one couldn’t obtain, and to Henry, because he deserved better than to be unknowingly ogled by a sodomite twice his age. Likely Henry did not even know about John’s reputation, having never sailed with him so having not been subjected to the (occasionally true) gossip about such men that traveled through every ship’s hold. If it was not easy it at least became so habitual that John ceased to consciously notice that he kept a careful space between them, even when he was leaning close to Henry to help him with his letters, and that he demurely averted his eyes when Henry, having just awoken and not yet donned his outer layers, yawned and arched and stretched his arms above his head, his half-unbuttoned shirt gaping open at the collar to expose his slim, pretty throat and the dusting of dark hair that covered his chest.</p>
<p>But it was not only Henry’s alluring physicality that entranced John. For all his frustration with his slow progress at literacy, Henry never gave up; indeed, he never even threatened to, unlike some of the pupils John had taught before. He grumbled and chastised himself and, once, slammed shut the notebook he was writing in with such force that his pencil jumped off the kitchen table and directly into the merrily blazing fire, which surprised his frustration clean out of him. But he did not once request that the lessons cease, and he did not again ask John why he continued to teach him, despite that John could sometimes see the question in his expressive face during a difficult session. Perhaps he felt, as John did, that such pessimism would disrespect the immense amount of effort both of them poured into the project of Henry’s literacy. </p>
<p>There was in the recently reorganized library a slim little chapbook of poems by a man who wrote under the name Barry Cornwall; John had found that the content of poems left something to be desired in his own reading but they were good for Henry to learn on: they were short enough that he could read one in a day, and a few of them touched upon maritime themes that John thought might interest Henry. Henry had taken to copying out the poems he read into the blank notebook John had gifted him, painstakingly looking back and forth between the chapbook and the notebook to be sure he had written his own properly, and then reading and re-reading his own handwritten version. This was John’s idea: if there were a problem with Henry’s eyes, it stood to reason that larger print would be easier for him to read, and besides, it would bolster Henry’s confidence to be reading his own carefully written letters. </p>
<p>“A th—o—u—sand—thousand, a thousand, ni—les. Niles? Oh. Miles. Damn.” Henry had both books spread flat on the table before him, his pencil tightly clutched in one hand. Beside him, John was kneading the dough for bread. The notebook was already covered in flour; John suspected the chapbook was not far behind.</p>
<p>“A thousand miles fr—from land are we,” Henry read. “Toss—ing ad… about on the r—o—a—r—roaring sea.” </p>
<p>“Very good,” John commented. </p>
<p>“From bill—ow—bill-ow?” Henry mouthed the word, but with emphasis on the latter rather than the former syllable.</p>
<p>“Billow,” John said. </p>
<p>“Oh. Billow to bound—ing billow cast.” </p>
<p>John’s knuckles sank easily into the soft, warm dough.</p>
<p>“Like flee—flee—” Henry sighed gustily, his breath stirring the powdery coating of flour that dusted the table like— </p>
<p>“Fleecy snow,” John said. </p>
<p>“Why can’t the same letter make the same sound?” Henry complained. </p>
<p>“It is one of the crueler quirks of the language,” John said, turning the dough and pressing it down with the heels of his hands, feeling the way it immediately expanded, soft tendrils rising between his splayed fingers like a hand holding his own. “You’re really doing remarkably well, considering the peculiar difficulties involved in learning this particular language.” </p>
<p>“Too bad we don’t speak French,” Henry joked. </p>
<p>“Actually, French would be worse.” </p>
<p>“Doesn’t surprise me,” Henry said dryly, with a sly sidelong glance at John, and John laughed. He found himself once more admiring Henry’s easy humor. Everything was easy with Henry, John was finding: speaking with him, seriously and offhand, and teaching him both the light and the language; even dividing their daily chores was easy, as though they were made to complement one another’s weaknesses. “I have a request,” Henry continued after a moment, in a tentative tone that from anyone else would have sparked no little trepidation within John. </p>
<p>“Of course.” </p>
<p>“Would you… read to me? Aloud.” </p>
<p>John paused in the meditative task of kneading the dough to look at Henry, who was gazing up at him with such uncertainty in his wide hazel eyes. John almost laughed, although he suppressed the urge lest Henry think John mocked him. That could not be further from the truth. Were he to laugh it would simply be in amazement that all the forces in the world—time and tide, the machinations of man and the impenetrable whims of nature, the unknowable hand of a God John wasn’t even sure he believed in, but perhaps did, now, more than he ever had before—all these forces had converged to bring this extraordinary young man to this little house on this desolate, windswept island where John also was. </p>
<p>“I would love to,” John said. </p>
<p>“It’s just that it’s dispiriting to only read these poems one word at a time. Feels like… feels like looking at just the lens of the light.” Henry’s face had gone soft with contemplation as he stared unseeingly at John’s flour-dusted hands. “Like I know what it’s for, but without the lantern inside it’s… it’s just glass. You know?” </p>
<p>“I very much do,” John said, and as he did so the thought arrived in his mind fully formed and with complete clarity: I am in love with this man. </p>
<p>“Ah,” Henry replied, “good,” surprising John, who for a moment could not distinguish between the words he had said and the thought that had independently struck him. </p>
<p>Afterwards, when the dough had been transferred to the big shallow bowl that left ample space for it to plump and rise, covered with a clean linen dish towel and tucked in its warm little spot beside the hearth, and when Henry had gone outside to search in the leafy muddle of the stalks that twined up the improvised trellis for the day’s ripe green beans, John allowed himself to turn the thought over in his mind, once, and then again, examining it as one would a particularly interesting stone one had plucked from the water’s edge: testing its weight and the worn-smooth curve of it, new yet strangely familiar, feeling how well it settled in the hollow of a cupped palm, how the fingers could extend to display it or curl in to tuck it away completely. </p>
<p>It was a bright, clear day, the November air brisk and bracing against John’s exposed nose and cheeks when he left the warmth of the house. He waved absently to Henry, who was still fussing about in the garden, and then continued on to the light, that broad white-painted column that rose from the scrubby grass that grew sparsely over the dark rocks of the coastline, the leg of some ancient god lovingly shaped from marble. The inside of the tower was cool and still, the faraway sound of the waves echoing in a distant, muffled way between the metal walls. As he ascended sunlight filtered more strongly through the openwork grate of each stair, until, when he paused near the top, he was surrounded by an unearthly white glow filtering through the curtains that enclosed the lantern room. The room itself was silent without the steady droning of the gears that set the lens on its slow revolution, strangely dark without the illumination of the lantern reflected through the powerful lens, but the parapet, when he went out onto it, was alive with the movement of the wind and the sound of the sea, and it was dazzlingly, blindingly bright. He held with both hands the thin railing that surrounded the parapet and simply looked out over the water: the huge vast expanse of it, shifting currents and roiling whitecapped waves, the light from the setting sun scattered in a shimmering line across hundreds of miles of water that seemed like no distance at all from where he was, as though he could reach out and pluck the ripe fruit of the sun where it hung near the horizon and cradle it gently in his hand. But plucking fruit was more Henry’s domain than John’s, and this just drew his thoughts back to Henry yet again: Henry’s easy smile and his warm eyes; his humor and his curiosity and the persistence with which he continued his studies; his rope-rough hands, the broad backs of which were downed with soft, fine dark hair.</p>
<p>John stayed up on the parapet for long enough that his extremities went tingly and then numb, watching the colors of the sky change from the day’s pure blue to the shifting sunset tapestry of butter-yellow and blazing orange and deep, rich indigos and violets, blush pinks transmuting into deep reds in a contrast as striking as the opening of a mouth. Then: the familiar cordoned-off closeness of the curtained lantern room at dusk, the sleeping light awoken, the concentric circles of the Fresnel lens collecting the tiny flame of the lamp and directing its powerful beam across many miles but also, up close, reflecting little bursts of glimmering effervescence that sparkled across its complex crystalline surface.</p>
<p>From the high vantage point of the lantern room the keeper’s house was a tidy ship floating upon the calm sea of Erebus, the wind-rustled grass and jutting shadowed peaks of rock like whitecaps and dark eddies buoying it gently upward. The house looked so cozy with smoke billowing from its stout brick chimney and all its windows merrily illuminated John was, for a moment, stunned that he was allowed to live there, that even a man such as himself could return to the warm and comforting embrace of this lovely, neat little home. And that Henry was there—that Henry had likely stoked the fireplace in the kitchen in anticipation of John cooking dinner, and that Henry was, perhaps, even now, sitting again at the table before the hearth sounding out the words that together made up Barry Cornwall’s mediocre poem. Henry who smiled so openly and easily, Henry with his quick mind and his patient, thoughtful judgment, Henry who listened with interest even when John was boring and didactic. </p>
<p>The house was indeed warm and neat when John came down from the lighthouse, the kettle on the fire piping a steady stream of steam into the air, and Henry was puttering around the kitchen, an open tin of tea held in one hand. </p>
<p>“There you are!” Henry said. “I had started to worry.” </p>
<p>John paused midway through taking off his coat, his cold-numbed fingers clumsy with the little toggles that held it closed, to stare at Henry: Henry in his worn red sweater and his soft-collared shirt, still holding the tin of tea, who apparently cared for solitary, bookish, unremarkable John Bridgens enough to <em>worry</em> about him. “Oh,” John said stupidly. </p>
<p>“Here,” Henry said, placing the tin on the countertop and going over to John. He deftly unfastened the toggles of John’s coat. He was very warm and stood very close and John could feel, even through the thick wool of the coat and the layers of his sweater and shirt, the precise movements of Henry’s fingers as he worked his way down John’s torso. When he had finished John expected him to step away, perhaps to finish making the tea he was clearly in the midst of preparing, but instead he pivoted around John to take the wide collar in his hands and gently slide the coat from John’s shoulders. He did this, and then hung the coat in its proper place beside the door, with such an attitude of ordinariness as to make this thoughtful and deferential task seem entirely unremarkable. Yet it was, for John, a gesture that embodied such affectionate conscientiousness that he had never before imagined it could be performed for him, and with such little mind as Henry now appeared to pay it: as though to care for John were simply a fact of life for Henry, a mundanity he could perform as naturally and unthinkingly as preparing a pot of tea. </p>
<p>Dinner preparations and then the meal itself were rather a blur for John, distracted as he was by the familiar presence of Henry, his enthusiastic talk about his progress through the first stanza of “The Stormy Petrel” and the (after long last, and to John’s relief) diminishing number of green beans ripe each day for harvesting. John prepared the remaining green beans and sliced thick slabs of fatty mutton and carefully watched the transformation of the round pillow of sallow dough into a crisp loaf of warmly golden-brown bread, intermittently drinking the tea Henry foisted upon him, although, in the close warm space of the kitchen with Henry at his side, John could barely remember the chill of the November wind that still buffeted the outside of the house. </p>
<p>After the closeness of the kitchen the sitting room seemed to John absurdly vast and cold, even contained, as it was, within the cozy little house John had so admired from the parapet. Henry seemed to have thoughts along similar lines, because when John reentered the room with a slim volume of poetry in his hands Henry had shoved both plush armchairs very close together before the fire and was crouching in front of the open grate, vigorously stoking the flames. </p>
<p>“What have you got for me?” Henry asked, satisfied enough with the blazing fire that he settled into one of the chairs. John sat in the other, studiously ignoring the way that, when he stretched his feet toward the fire, they nearly touched Henry’s. </p>
<p>“Shakespeare,” John said, holding the book up so that the firelight illuminated the embossed cover. It was a collection of all 154 sonnets printed on thick cream-colored paper and bound in soft brown leather, an indulgence John did not for a moment regret even while eating the many sparse meals that had necessarily followed its purchase. </p>
<p>It was, perhaps, also indulgence to pick and choose which sonnets he read to Henry; it would be more logical to start with the first sonnet and work their way through, but John knew that Henry would listen with careful attentiveness to whatever John read and what John wanted at this moment, in his own private way and obscured with the words of another, was to tell Henry how he felt about him. So he began with XXIII. </p>
<p>
  <em>As an unperfect actor on the stage<br/>
Who with his fear is put besides his part,<br/>
Or some fierce thing replete with too much rage,<br/>
Whose strength’s abundance weakens his own heart.<br/>
So I, for fear of trust, forget to say<br/>
The perfect ceremony of love’s rite,<br/>
And in mine own love’s strength seem to decay,<br/>
O’ercharged with burden of mine own love’s might.<br/>
O, let my books be then the eloquence<br/>
And dumb presagers of my speaking breast,<br/>
Who plead for love and look for recompense<br/>
More than that tongue that more hath more express’d.<br/>
O, learn to read what silent love hath writ:<br/>
To hear with eyes belongs to love’s fine wit.</em>
</p>
<p>Henry watched him while he read; the expression on his rapt face was almost too much to bear while John recited such words, the serious downturn of the corners of his mouth beneath his soft auburn beard and his wide dark eyes in which twin reflected flames shone. It only occurred to John once he reached the second quatrain that this entire endeavor may have been a mistake: rather than secretly purged of his innermost feelings John felt flayed open, entirely revealed, the poem not obscuring his emotions but amplifying them the way the lens did the lantern light. John’s voice nearly gave out during the final couplet; he cleared his throat after reading, more roughly than he would have liked, and looked at the book, at the fire, at anything at all rather than Henry. Outside the house the wind blustered and sighed. It was well past time to check on the light. </p>
<p>“Would you read it again?” Henry asked softly. </p>
<p>John thought of the weak tea he had had to drink after spending too much of his on-shore half-pay to purchase the beautiful book he now held in his hands, the watered-down soup and lean, salt-sharp meat he had cut into paper-thin slices to make meager meals. He touched, contemplatively, the butter-soft leather that covered the book’s spine. He might spend the rest of his life fasting for this single night’s indulgence. </p>
<p>John opened the book again, and he read. </p>
<p>The familiar and well-loved words were no less affecting the second time; indeed, repetition seemed to heighten all the emotions they induced in John, as the droning repetition of some foreign paean invoked the appearance of an ancient god. If the first reading had not fully revealed to Henry the depth of John’s feelings the second could leave no possible doubt. </p>
<p>Almost three decades previously when John had been a ship’s boy on HMS <em>Chatham</em> two able seamen had been lashed for drunkenness and disrespect, though John never learned in more detail specifically what their infraction had entailed. He had, however, along with the rest of the crew, been made to watch the boatswain’s punishment of the men. John remembered the boatswain’s white sleeves, rolled to the elbow, and the whisper of the knotted ends of the cat as they dragged across the deck, audible amidst the grim silence of the gathered crew. The first strike had been so loud John had thought that perhaps one of the yardarms had snapped, but when he jerked his gaze up to the rigging everything was in its place. Then he looked to the sailor who was being lashed: painted across the man’s broad, pale back were three parallel lines, gleaming with a dark, liquid sheen in the early-morning sunlight. </p>
<p>John himself had never been lashed but he thought of that moment sometimes, the skin of the seaman’s back, previously whole and untouched, split open so that the tenderly pink and red inner matter of the man’s body was exposed to the cool and salt-sharp breeze. He had wondered what it must feel like to be invaded in such a way, to experience that most primal violation of the animal of one’s body; the screaming pain, of course, but more importantly even than that the wrongness of the reversal: that which is meant to be protected, secreted away, suddenly and agonizingly revealed.</p>
<p>After John read the final couplet it was very quiet, as though the fire in the hearth and the wind outside were loath to break the strange spell that the poem had cast over the room and then two men within; perhaps afraid, as John was, of awakening the capricious deity his unwitting paean had invoked. </p>
<p>“I ought to,” John said, his voice weak and desperate even to his own ears, “check on the light.” When he stood he felt very aware of how close he was to Henry in the warm little space between both chairs and the fire. Henry’s legs were still extended toward the fire but John gingerly avoided brushing against them, as though even the slightest touch would be the spark that set the tinder of John’s affections ablaze, incinerating him completely. He still did not look at Henry.</p>
<p>But Henry, as John passed him, reached out to catch John’s hand with his own, warm and broad and callus-rough. “John,” he said. And finally John looked at him: his flush-pinked cheeks, his parted lips, and his wide eyes, the clear and gold-flecked hazel of his irises darker than it ever had appeared before. He gripped John’s hand very tightly and held it even as he stood, tugging John closer to him so that their clasped hands were caught between their bodies, the backs of John’s knuckles brushing, through Henry’s sweater, the plane of his sternum and the swell of one pectoral. </p>
<p>Standing chest-to-chest with Henry like this John was inescapably aware of how much shorter Henry was than himself; this was not generally a characteristic he preferred in romantic liaisons, unlike some other men of his predilections, but he found irresistibly charming the way Henry had to tip his chin up to meet John’s gaze, or that his head would fit just into the hollow of John’s throat if John drew him a little closer and held him tightly. The fire burning low behind Henry limned his whole figure with a soft golden light. </p>
<p>With the hand that was not gripping John’s Henry reached up to touch his face, so tremblingly gentle that John could, at first, barely even feel the path traced by his fingertips: first the line of John’s jaw, obscured by his beard, and then the arch of his cheekbone, brushing back a dark lock of overlong hair that had come untucked from behind his ear. John had never before been touched in such a way, not hesitantly but with purposeful tenderness, as though he were some precious thing that Henry was only now discovering. Henry carded his fingers through John’s hair, his callus-rough palm brushing the sensitive shell of John’s ear, and then fitted his hand against the nape of John’s neck, guiding him gently down. </p>
<p>The first touch of Henry’s mouth to John’s was soft but not tentative. John could feel the brush of Henry’s neatly trimmed mustache against his own and the warm blunt nudge of the tip of Henry’s nose against his cheek. Henry’s lips parted, whisper-close, just enough to catch the swell of John’s lower lip between his own: another way their bodies seemed made to fit together. And then John breathed a quick, anxious little breath against Henry’s cheek and their lips separated, dryly but with a quiet and intimate sound that seemed to fill the close space between their bodies as naturally as the huff of breath or the hush of the hard calluses on Henry’s palm against John’s own skin when Henry squeezed John’s hand convulsively against his chest. When they kissed again they found new and revelatory ways for their mouths to slot sweetly against one another’s, plush lips parting for the quick hot dart of tongue, promising the warmth and secret wetness of the body’s hidden inner spaces. </p>
<p>Henry released John’s hand so that he could bring both arms around John’s shoulders and press up toward him, arching his warm, taut body against John’s. John touched, first, the flat of Henry’s chest, then the little curve of one pectoral, solid even beneath his sweater and shirt, and the curve of his ribcage where it met the slope of his slim waist. He rucked up Henry’s sweater to slide one hand between it and the loose fall of his worn-soft shirt. When he splayed his hand over the dip at the base of Henry’s spine Henry rolled his hips so easily against John’s, letting out a sweet little moan that John could feel in all the places their bodies met, slick mouths and heaving chests and sinuously rolling hips, and in the eager hardness of Henry’s arousal, a rigid curving line perceptible even through the material of his trousers.</p>
<p>When John pressed his tongue to the seam of Henry’s lips Henry immediately opened for him, pliant and responsive, his fingers curling against the nape of John’s neck. Each tremor and flutter of Henry’s body against John’s just made him hungrier for him, Henry’s grasping hands and his wanton open mouth, the quiet gasps and moans he breathed against John’s lips. As he was in everything else Henry in his passion was curious and beautifully enthusiastic, entirely unreserved in a way John had rarely experienced with men of their preferences. Perhaps it was the complete solitude granted by the uniquely remote nature of their little house; but even here, John felt nervous and reticent, as though about to be caught out by some purely imaginary interloper. Henry, conversely, was utterly unrestrained, rolling his hips eagerly against John’s and letting loose such lovely unconscious noises of lust and satiation, hitched breaths and gasps and quiet moans. It was intoxicating both to have such an immediate and unfettered response to his tender ministrations and to know it was he, himself, who coaxed such beautifully expressed pleasure from Henry’s lithe, lovely body. </p>
<p>They broke apart to breathe, their bodies still pressed tightly together so that John could feel how Henry’s chest rose and fell against his own and the tremors that still passed through him, each little ripple somehow, like the rising tide, pressing him ever closer to John. As though he couldn’t help himself even now Henry pressed sweet brief kisses to John’s face, to the corner of his lip, his cheek just above the line of his beard, the highest point of his cheekbone, the bridge of his nose.</p>
<p>“I really must check on the light,” John murmured against Henry’s cheek as Henry nuzzled against him like some great cat. </p>
<p>“Right,” Henry said, and then he kissed John again on the mouth, plush lips and soft beard, and he leaned far enough away to look at John fully. </p>
<p>Oh, if Henry had not been beautiful before, if his cheeks had not been sweetly flushed nor his eyes dark enough for him to look like some alluring creature comprised entirely of lust, his heavy-lidded gaze and kiss-plumped mouth now lended him the look of an ancient god of debauchery, or perhaps a Caravaggio painting of some ethereally gorgeous youth extending one soft, plump hand toward the viewer in suggestive invitation. Yet the roughness of Henry’s hands and the soft dishevelment of his usually neat beard made him more beautiful and alluring than any bare-faced youth could be, and the sleepy way his thick-lashed eyelids fluttered when he looked at John was sweeter and more arresting than any still portrait could ever capture. John thought, somewhat wildly, of Sonnet XXIV; could he recall it he would recite it from heart, never looking away from the lovely image of the man before him, but even that sonnet fell short because he felt he now knew, with utmost certainty, what lay within Henry’s heart: it was that which laid also within his own.</p>
<p>And yet the light still had to be seen to, so with extraordinary reluctance John let go of Henry and crossed the room to take his coat from its hook beside the door: even the act of donning the coat reminded John of the affectionate way Henry had helped him out of the same coat when he had returned from the light earlier that evening, the swift and delicate way Henry’s fingers had slipped the knot of each toggle from its eye. The November wind, when John stepped out into it, was whip-strong and near freezing, landing like needles on the exposed skin of his nose and cheeks. </p>
<p>The light shone in the distance; John watched its strong, steadily revolving beam cut a bright line through the clear cold air. To stand on the porch in the cold night and hear only the howl of the wind and the rush and distant crash of the unseen sea, to watch the familiar blinking light: John could almost imagine it was an early winter’s evening in any other year he had spent on this remote and solitary island, that he would return to the house to find only himself living there, his things organized and cleaned and kept by his own hands. It felt like a dream to know he would return to the warmth of the fire Henry had stoked, and to Henry’s ardent gaze and worshipful touch; these were things he had not dared ever to hope for, having relinquished the fruitless disappointment of wishing for impossibilities many years previously. And yet Henry immediately set himself upon John when John returned to the cozy warmth of the house, crowding him up against the closed door and slipping his hot hands inside John’s still-unbuttoned coat. </p>
<p>“You’re cold,” Henry murmured, rising on his toes to kiss John’s cheek, then his mouth, imparting his warmth to John’s chilled skin. </p>
<p>“It is still November,” John replied, amused. </p>
<p>“Will you take me to bed?” Henry asked: lightly, like it was nothing for him to ask such a thing of John, in the same way he requested if John would set another kettle of water to boil so they could have an afternoon pot of tea. As though he could only imagine receiving one answer.</p>
<p>“Yes.” </p>
<p>If Henry could not, with his still-unsteady fledgling grasp of the written word, peer into the innermost parts of John’s soul by glancing quickly about the library, then having him within the private space of John’s sleeping quarters felt almost as revealing: here the neatly aligned stack of books on John’s bedside table, here his little basin and mirror and well-kept shaving kit, here the bed which knew the weight and warmth of his body, relaxed in sleep. Yet what was there for John to reveal of himself to Henry that his searching, desperate touch and ardent kisses had not already betrayed? Even to undress before him, exposing the rough, ungentle topography of his nude torso, its coarse graying hair and soft pink scars, the stark black and fading gray lines of the tattoos that sprawled across its chest and arms, seemed a less profound intimacy than that of the first touch of their lips.</p>
<p>Where John’s body was coarse and jagged as the rocks of Erebus, marked with the eclectic souvenirs of many years at sea, Henry’s was sleek and lithe, the hair furring his chest thick and dark, the vulnerable thin-skinned undersides of his arms smooth when he wound them again about John’s neck. Bare to the waist and with his braces hanging loose against his thighs Henry looked tantalizingly masculine, his strong, broad foretopman’s shoulders in beautiful contrast to his slender waist and narrow hips: nude and in contrapposto he could easily embody the ancient Greeks’ ideals of beauty. Had John any talent at art he might draw Henry; had he a gift for poetry he might write odes to him. For lack of these he worshiped Henry’s body with his own, sketching his hands over the taut trembling expanse of Henry’s belly, speaking silent quatrains against the smooth skin at the base of his throat under which the obscure mechanisms of muscle and tendon twitched and tensed. </p>
<p>Henry touched John’s tattoos as though the wounds were still fresh despite the once-black ink of some older ones having faded to a dull and uneven gray; he delicately brushed his callused fingertips over the little swallow that alit on John’s shoulder, its pointed wings and forked tail spread as though in flight, and he touched, too, the the thick concentric bands that wrapped around his upper right arm. These were relics of the South Pacific, etched into John’s skin not with the single thin needle and lampblack ink the other sailors used to trace unsteady designs on one another’s bodies but with a gleaming and many-toothed bone device affixed to the end of a stick that was tapped swiftly and repeatedly with another stick, the pain bright but the sound almost soothing to a young and reckless sailor in a strange sun-bleached land. Henry moved his hands across the expanse of John’s chest, the slopes of his pectorals downed with wiry silvering hair, the dip of his sternum and the little brown nubs of his nipples, the four-pointed compass star that wobbled, slightly unevenly, over his heart, and the curling N hovering above its longest spur. Henry touched this tattoo, as he had the others, wonderingly, skating his fingertips gently over the warm skin before bowing his head to taste it. </p>
<p>Henry’s lips were full and the brush of his mustache was soft when he opened his mouth to John’s skin, the dart of his tongue hot and slick and mobile as it traced the slope of John’s chest and the line of one collarbone. John let out an unsteady, shuddering gasp, his fingers curling instinctively against the smooth, bare skin of Henry’s back to draw him close. It was overwhelming to be touched like this, gently and with a leisurely slowness, as though Henry had all the time in the world to explore the unremarkable and well-used planes of John’s body; John had never before felt feasted upon the way Henry now seemed to devour him, had never even imagined anything about himself to be deserving of such attention.</p>
<p>When Henry nudged John toward the bed John sat, obediently, and Henry immediately straddled his lap, thighs splayed obscenely over John’s. Like this they could kiss without Henry craning his neck up and John leaning down and Henry immediately took advantage by delving his hands into John’s hair and holding his head in place to kiss him and kiss him, taking quick short breaths against John’s mouth between kisses. Henry was heavy and warm against him, his legs bracketing John’s tightly, hips rocking in eager little circles against John’s to send bright sparks of arousal skittering up John’s spine. Heat built between their bodies, bringing a fine sheen of sweat to Henry’s throat and shoulders that the lamplight illuminated with its soft golden glow, and when John kissed Henry’s throat and then opened his mouth to the fragile skin there, tracing his tongue along the faint line of Henry’s pulse, he tasted it, heady and salt-sharp. </p>
<p>“Touch me?” Henry asked in a quiet murmur against John’s ear. </p>
<p>With his braces loose beside his splayed-wide thighs Henry’s trousers hung low on his slim hips and it was easy for John to unfasten the flies and slip his hand into the hot space at the juncture of Henry’s thighs, searching fingers delving beneath the tented material of Henry’s smalls to curl around the hard jut of his cock. Henry sighed beautifully at the first touch of John’s hand to his arousal, his head tipping back and his chest heaving, kiss-reddened lips delectably parted. John worked him slowly, teasing as much as exploring, feeling the hot silken foreskin slip over the hard underlying structure of it, rolling soft skin back from the plump drooling head to smear moisture about the tip with the pad of his thumb. Henry shuddered and moaned, his fingers clutching convulsively at the bare skin of John’s back and ruffling the hair at the nape of his neck. </p>
<p>Everything about Henry was beautiful but he had never been more so than when he was lost in his pleasure like this, unrestrained and unselfconscious, a sweetly rosepetal-pink flush mottling the pale skin of his throat and chest. John loved him, profoundly, in a way he had never loved anyone before, the caution with which he usually approached such assignations transmuted into a wild recklessness that might have frightened him were it directed toward anyone less deserving: but this was Henry, gentle and honest and considerate Henry, who deserved as much worshipful devotion as John could find within himself. Gripping the curve of Henry’s trim waist and the peak of his hipbone John deftly flipped them, laying Henry on his back on the bed, Henry’s legs still bracketing his hips. Henry’s breath left him in an audible huff and he looked dazedly up at John, eyes wide and dark, lips still parted. </p>
<p>“Fuck,” he breathed. </p>
<p>John kissed him, his slack mouth and his chin softly muted by his beard, the fragile pillar of his throat with its esoteric muscles fluttering below the skin as Henry gasped and swallowed, and then moved lower, to the slim lines of Henry’s collarbones and the hard plane of his sternum and his pink nipples which had hardened into aroused little buds protruding sweetly from the soft down of hair that furred his chest. John licked one and then, experimentally, tugged gently at the nub of flesh with his teeth and Henry jerked and moaned beneath him, tightening his hands in John’s hair, so John did it again, harder, this time, and felt the way Henry’s cock twitched against his belly. He moved further down Henry’s body, mapping the spoke of each rib and the hollows between, the cathedral arch of the bottom of his ribcage and the tender slope of his belly, the peaks of his hipbones and the tender skin that stretched between them, lined with the faint tracery of underlying veins and downed with soft little curls of dark hair. </p>
<p>To tug the worn-soft material of Henry’s trousers, inch by inch, from his slim hips to reveal the dark thatch of his pubic hair, the stiff stand of his arousal with its sweetly flushed pinkness and gleaming drops of precome pearling at the tip, the delicately thin skin where his legs joined his torso and his plump and paper-white thighs was to open for the first time a newly purchased book one had long admired in a shop window, tracing one’s fingers reverently over the butter-soft leather of the cover before revealing pristine cream-colored paper on which was printed the orderly black type that would spirit one away to distant lands, or reveal a new perspective on a well-known place, or gift one some profound new insight into one’s own internal landscape: to discover something entirely new, yet somehow familiar. The space at the junction of Henry’s thighs was blood-hot, humid and rich with the heady animal scent of Henry’s body, and when John took his cock into his mouth it spooled its sea-salt taste across his tongue. </p>
<p>Henry’s eager responsiveness was intoxicating. He trembled and shuddered and jolted under John’s ministrations, so much so that John had to lock his forearm across Henry’s bucking hips to hold him in place and even then Henry writhed and twitched under the weight, fingers scrabbling weakly at the bedclothes. He loosed loud gasps and moans into the warm and sex-scented air of the room, unrestrained, unlike so many others with whom John had shared pleasure who were used to keeping trysts quick and quiet for fear of being caught. Henry seemed instead to luxuriate in his pleasure, inhabiting it fully, as though this joining were not an inconvenient necessity but a rare and decadent feast to be savored—and, oh, did John feast upon Henry. </p>
<p>Below the upward-curving jut of Henry’s cock were his softly furred stones, the loose flesh and plump inner parts of which John rolled gently in his hand, and, lower, the tender dip of his perineum. When Henry let out an encouraging moan John pressed a fingertip against the tight furl of his hole; he did not push inside him, not yet, although all these intimate parts of Henry fluttered and clutched at John, as though Henry was as eager to take John within himself as John was to sink into his tight heat. Henry writhed beneath John’s touch, heels dragging against the bedclothes, the muscles of his thighs flexing and tensing, causing minute flutters of the bare skin downed with fine, dark hair that framed John’s broad shoulders as he knelt between Henry’s legs. </p>
<p>Saliva slicked Henry’s cock, dripping even to the base where John’s mouth did not reach, and glistened wetly on the dark curls of his pubic hair, and when John dragged the tip of one finger against the place where it pooled at the junction of his cock and stones and used the slickness to ease the passage of the tip of his finger into Henry’s fundament Henry nearly howled and, very abruptly, climaxed, the persistent seep of spend from the drooling head of his cock becoming a hot flood within John’s mouth. John swallowed, and swallowed, again, the thick and bitter salt-sharp wash of Henry’s come, taking a leisurely pleasure from lapping the spend and saliva from Henry’s softening cock and drawing weak, overwhelmed little moans from his throat. </p>
<p>Henry tugged at John’s hair until John moved up his body and then, hands still splayed against either side of John’s face, kissed him messily, slack-mouthed, uncaring of his own spend which still slicked John’s swollen lips. In his post-orgasm haze Henry was clingy and a little uncoordinated, rolling half-atop John to press his warm sweat-damp chest to John’s and slotting a bare thigh between John’s still-clothed legs. He struggled with the flies of John’s trousers until John himself unfastened the buttons and then Henry took John’s aching arousal in his broad rough hand and stroked him firmly, root to tip, slower than John perhaps might have done for himself; but this was Henry, Henry whose soft plump lips opened against John’s own to allow the tip of his tongue to dart inside John’s mouth, Henry whose body was pressed tightly against all of John’s, Henry whose thumb brushed, clumsily, over the damp head of John’s cock: and so John gave himself over to orgasm, gasping into Henry’s mouth as the glimmering bliss of his climax effervesced through him.</p>
<p>A lazy and intimate quietude suffused the room, broken only by the soft sound of Henry intermittently kissing John’s jaw and throat, nuzzling fondly into the hollow at the junction of his neck and shoulder. John wanted to lock him there, tucked perfectly against the stark planes and empty spaces of John’s body as though they were always intended to hold one another in such a way, but instead he loosely curled his arm around the span of Henry’s shoulders and pressed a kiss to his forehead, breathing in the warm and masculine scent of his sweat-damp body. </p>
<p>“Thank you,” Henry murmured, sleepily, against the knob of John’s shoulder where the pointed tip of the swallow’s outstretched wing curved darkly over pale skin. </p>
<p>“Thank you?”</p>
<p>Henry hummed in assent. “For reading to me.” </p>
<p>John laughed quietly, tightening his arm around Henry’s shoulder, and Henry curled closer to him. “You are most welcome. I do enjoy reading aloud.” </p>
<p>“I like hearing you read.” Henry sounded as though on the verge of sleep already. “Your voice. Is nice.” </p>
<p>“We should clean up a little,” John said somewhat reluctantly. </p>
<p>Henry grumbled, sweetly recalcitrant, and John kissed his temple as he attempted to slide his arm from under the weight of Henry’s body. To see Henry like this was yet another unimaginable gift which had been granted to John: the sleepy vulnerability of his words and the unselfconscious way he nuzzled into the warm spot left on the bed in John’s absence, the elegant curve of his bare back and the innocent way he had tucked one curled hand beneath his chin, the way his dark eyelashes gently brushed his pink cheeks. </p>
<p>Still flushed with the warmth of sex John pulled only his shirt over his head as he went into the main part of the house again. The sitting room was still and very quiet, the reading lamp doused so the only illumination was the sunset reds and oranges of the low smoldering fire behind the grate. John crossed into the kitchen, also lit solely by the intermittently crackling embers in the hearth, and after setting some water to boil he simply stood there in the dark familiar space of the kitchen which was no longer only his, on this island which was also no longer only his, if it ever had been, at all, listening to the sighing of the wind and the far-off crash of waves against the rocks of Erebus: the same sounds these immortal and inexorable forces had made before the lighthouse had been erected and John had come to faithfully care for it, and the same sounds they would make after he had left, or died, after the gleaming eye of the light had closed for the final time, perhaps rendered obsolete, perhaps worried relentlessly by the turbulent and salt-rough waves until it broke into hundreds of dull and opaque shards of sea-glass that washed like wandering stars upon some distant beach. </p>
<p>With a pitcher of steaming water in hand John padded back into the bedroom where Henry was still curled, unselfconscious in sleep, in John’s own bed. Henry woke when John gently cleaned the sweat and spend from his still-warm skin with a damp flannel, reaching sleepily up to embrace John’s shoulders as John leaned over him. </p>
<p>“We will have to do something about the beds,” Henry murmured. </p>
<p>“Will we?” John asked, feeling particularly indulgent as he ran his fingers through the soft down of hair on Henry’s chest.</p>
<p>“They’re very small.” </p>
<p>John remembered, with some amusement, Henry’s initial wonderment at the size of his room. “Are they?” </p>
<p>“For the both of us, I mean. I hope—” and here Henry paused, his hazel eyes suddenly clear and awake as they flitted across John’s face. “Unless—you don’t—”</p>
<p>“Oh,” John said, possessed of such fondness for Henry that he had to lean down to kiss him, gently, feeling against his skin the quick sharp breath Henry took before sealing their mouths chastely together, lips soft and warm against John’s own. “I do. I do,” he said. </p>
<p>The words left him thoughtlessly, the first reassurance he could find to soothe the worry that had darkened Henry’s features, but the soft radiance that suffused Henry’s face at hearing the vow gave it a more profound meaning than he had initially intended—and when Henry pressed up toward him to kiss him again he found that all the meanings held true.</p>
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